“There is an alcoholic haze at the center of our galaxy.”

No, that sentence isn’t an example of fuzzy-headed navel-gazing after a night of over-imbibing.It is an excerpt from Dr. Patrick E. McGovern’s 2009 book “Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages,” and it refers to the huge clouds of methanol, ethanol and vinyl ethanol that exist in space—one of which stretches near the center of the Milky Way. It is hypothesized that this vinyl ethanol, contained in dust particles and frozen into comets, may have introduced the first building blocks of life on Earth. If that is the case, is it any wonder human civilization developed from the start with a drive to create—and consume—fermented beverages?

McGovern (prepare yourself for the best job title ever) is the Scientific Director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. He began his archaeological career as a student of pottery.